The Student Assembly passed two resolutions last night, asking for extended dining hours at Home Plate, and the other allocating funds to subsidize bus tickets for students traveling to Boston and New York City.
The Assembly also shot down four proposed amendments to its constitution. These amendments would have limited among other things, limited how the Assembly spends money and required presidential and vice presidential candidates to run together on the same ticket.
Vice President of student services Simone Swink '98 sponsored the unanimously-passed bus ride proposal, which set aside $800 to help students buy bus tickets for spring break.
According to the resolution, students will be able to buy round-trip bus tickets to Boston for $35 and to New York City for $45.
The Assembly unanimously passed a resolution requesting Dartmouth Dining Services extend the dinner hours of Home Plate. The resolution was sponsored by Vice President of student life Della Bennett '96 and Robin Nunn '99.
The Assembly also unanimously approved Assembly President Jim Rich's nomination of Dominic LaValle '99 to take over as vice president of academic affairs, a position previously held by Shakari Cameron '96, who stepped down.
One of last night's failed proposed amendments would have dissolved the Assembly's community service committee, which was deemed spurious by the committee's vice president, Sarah Johnston '97.
For ratification, each proposed amendment requires affirmative votes from 75 percent of Assembly members. Secretary Jim Horowitz '98 said the membership was 35, so each amendment required 27 votes.
Two hours into the meeting, enough members had left to make it almost impossible to pass amendments.
Johnston and Swink sponsored the resolution calling for the dissolution of the community service committee. The proposal failed by a vote of 26 supporting and one against.
Case Dorkey '99 and Vice President of administration and faculty relations Laura Bennett '96 co-sponsored another failed amendment, which would have required members of her committee to maintain strict confidentiality regarding information shared by administrators and faculty members.
The proposal garnered 26 votes -- all of those present at the end of the meeting -- but it still failed to pass.
Rich said he was "very disappointed" that the two amendments failed to pass because members left early. He said the amendments would be reconsidered next week.
The resolution calling for presidential and vice presidential candidates to run on a single ticket was sponsored by Horowitz, Johnston, Monica Oberkofler '96, Swink, Treasurer Nina Nho '97, Executive Vice President Kelii Opulauoho '96 and Communications Vice President Jonah Sonnenborn '99.
The present constitution allows students to run for Assembly president or vice president independently.
The amendment failed by a vote of 17 for, eight against with three students abstaining. Because it was a constitutional amendment, the proposal again needed 27 votes to pass.
Matt Shafer '97, who served on the Student Assembly External Review Committee last spring, visited last night's Assembly meeting to voice adamant support for the failed bill.
The external review committee analyzed the Assembly last spring, when it was suffering from infighting and divisiveness. The committee made several proposals, which were ratified by last year's Assembly and which led to an extensive revision of the Assembly's constitution.
A "central aspect" of the recommendations was "to have the president and vice president run together on a ticket," Shafer said. It would improve Assembly efficiency, he said.
Bill Kartalopoulos '97 said having candidates run together on tickets limited choices. He said it would show the Assembly lacked faith in voters.
He said, "I'm not sure who Matt is to tell them they're voting incorrectly."
Rich said, "If you have a president and vice president who don't see eye-to-eye, you'll have a Fall term full of quibbling."
More debate arose earlier in the evening over a proposed amendment calling for the Assembly to prohibit itself from allocating funds for programming events.
Sponsored by Swink, the proposal got 27 negative votes and one for.
